When fall rolls around and skies turn dark and stormy, things revert to the old ways on the northern Great Plains, and one of the great events that stir the blood of anyone who loves the outdoors and the hunt takes place: Ducks and geese take to the sky in anticipation of the approach of winter.

It's always been this way here. And for waterfowl hunters who live in the upper part of the Central Flyway, the rites of autumn take on a magical quality, as the good hunting still remains part of the sporting heritage here. It isn't like this in many other areas of North America anymore. But the Dakotas have so far seen good flights of ducks and geese. Fortunately, in the Dakota prairie, much suitable waterfowl habitat remains. And to the north, the environment in Canada's prairie provinces is still intact enough to produce tremendous numbers of the waterfowl that, with the cold already nipping angrily at their tailfeathers, migrate southward to us.

Herb Dittus has taken part in the annual hunt for years. As North Dakota's state chairman of Ducks Unlimited, he's also been around plenty of waterfowl hunters in what is undoubtedly one of the country's best duck and goose hunting states.

From his home in Beulah, N.D., Dittus hunts the local area, mostly for geese. In a way, it's like the old days, because hunters in the area still befriend landowners and merely have to ask for permission to hunt when the geese come in. When that happens, the hunting can be quite good.

Dittus often hunts near Lake Sakakawea. There, as at many other areas along the Missouri River and its reservoirs, both ducks and geese spend the night on the lake or its edge, and then fly to harvested grain fields during the day where they feed and stay very healthy and fat in anticipation of the frigid weather that is on the way.

"They stay on the lake as long as the water is not frozen," said Dittus. "And at the same time there are a lot on the river. They will stay until January; some stay all winter. We have quite a few wheat fields and barley fields. In the last couple of years, the farmers have been planting peas. That is the hot item. They flock to those fields."

After the fields are harvested, there remains lots of waste grain still on the ground. So the geese comb the fields and pick up enough grain to have a good food supply during their stay.

"The geese walk around and pick up the stuff that went through the machine," said Dittus. "Right now I would be looking for a pea field; that would be No. 1. A barley field -- that would be my second choice."

Dittus uses binoculars to locate the birds, but there are other ways unique to small town life. He talks with people -- farmers and folks who drive the roads -- and the goose grapevine saves a lot of time in locating the birds he likes to hunt. Although public hunting land can be found near Sakakawea, much of the hunting that Dittus likes is on the private land where the birds feed.